Page 128 of Devious Lies (Cruel Crown)
Our new office lunch ritual, ladies and gentleman.
If this is hell, I’ll change my ways. Fucking promise.
“Will you help me, Nash?” She peeked back at me, her body arched doggy style.
My eyes remained glued to my phone.
Candy Crush again.
Full volume.
Victorious dings filled the air.
“Unless capitalism has changed in the past twenty minutes, the whole point of paying people money is so I don’t have to waste my time with pointless shit.” My thumb ran miles across the screen. The light cast a shadow from my lashes to the phone. Candy wrappers crushing echoed in the room. “Did I miss a memo?”
Cayden eyed Chantilly’s ass as she ran a palm along the polyester fabric. He had two working eyes and a healthy libido, and Chantilly bore the body of a Sports Illustrated model. Yet, I didn’t glance.
Not once.
Definitely not in the past ten days, as each attempt grew more desperate than the last.
You’d think she’d take the fucking hint.
Office picnics for lunch had never existed before I started my feeding attempts, and Chantilly caught on.
If Emery—fucking Emery and her stubborn ass—would cave, everyone in this office could go back to ignoring each other, please and thank you.
Chantilly spread five sets of silverware across the cloth—one for everyone but Emery. “It’s just lunch, Nash.”
“It’s Mr. Prescott to you, and because you have such difficulty understanding boundaries, allow me to teach you a lesson in them.” I pocketed my phone, stepped on top of the cloth, and rattled the silverware, shattering a crystal plate with my three-thousand-dollar dress shoes.
I continued, “This is what happens when pe
ople overstep my boundaries.” My heel dug into the crushed plate and twisted. “They become as useless to me as a broken plate. People are expendable, including you. Clean this mess and clear the office. In the future, Chartreuse, do not overstep if you’d like to keep your job.”
Problem was, Chantilly cared about her job as much as she cared about melting ice caps in the Arctic. As in, not at all. I’d become her goal the second I’d stepped foot in this office and introduced myself to the team.
Perhaps earlier, considering her behavior at the corporate party she'd crashed. If it weren't for her uncle, I'd fire her. Easily.
Cayden left with Ida Marie and Hannah, his phone pulled up to his Uber app. Cheeks the same shade as her hair, Chantilly folded the edges of the tablecloth to the center, bundled up the mess in the middle, and shoved it under Cayden’s desk.
Emery slid her sketchpad into her Jana Sport and flung it over her shoulder. Her toe hit the door’s threshold when I stopped her.
“Not you, Miss Rhodes.”
A mouse squeaked.
Or Chantilly.
They sounded the same.
“Yes, Mr. Prescott?” She pivoted, rested a hip against the frame, and studied me.
I eyed Chantilly, who took her time gathering her belongings into the Birkin bag she wore—something her salary did not afford her, but her family did. The silence allowed Emery to scrape her eyes down my body, trying to satiate her curiosity.
Good luck, Tiger.
That ember between us never extinguished. Proximity drew sweat from her palms. She rubbed them on her jeans, staring at me like she needed to taste me, fuck me, use me. To affirm our one-night stand meant nothing. A fluke orgasm that would have happened if anyone experienced touched her.
